The Outcast

by Michael Walters

  “Even so, I’m a VIP, you know. You could have told them to go easy.”

  “I did.” Sam laughed. “Think what it would have been like if I hadn’t.”

  Sam seemed more relaxed, Odbayar thought, now that they had reached this point. There had been a lot resting on him, while they were setting this up. But then there was a lot resting on both of them, and it was far from over. Odbayar himself wasn’t yet feeling any obvious sense of relaxation.

  “So how long?” Odbayar persisted. “When do we contact them?”

  “Let’s get up there first,” Sam said. “Another couple of hours or so.”

  “Will we be able to call from there? I mean, will the cell phone work?”

  “Mine will,” Sam said simply. “That’s all under control.”

  Odbayar nodded. That was what he liked most about working with Sam; nothing was left to chance. He was a professional, and he had resources behind him, even if Odbayar had chosen not to enquire too deeply into how or where those resources had been acquired.

  “Won’t they be able to trace it?” Odbayar said. It was only by working with Sam that Odbayar had realised how amateurish his own approach had been.

  He had been cocksure before, buoyed by his own momentum, like one of those American cartoon characters who run off the cliff, still running until they make the mistake of looking down.

  Sam seemed untroubled. “Not with my phone,” he said. “Not until it’s far too late, anyway. I’ve told you. Relax. That side of things is all under control.”

  Odbayar settled back in the passenger seat. His mind kept running back through everything they had done, trying to spot anything they had overlooked. He had wondered whether Gundalai suspected anything. Gundalai, for all his easy-going nature, was no fool.

  At one point, Odbayar had thought they would take Gundalai into their confidence. He would have preferred that. Although he would never say so explicitly, Odbayar trusted Gundalai. He trusted his judgement. He trusted his reliability. And he trusted his integrity.

  That had been the problem, he supposed. He could tell himself otherwise, but he knew that Gundalai would never have accepted this. If he had known what was going on, he would have tried to stop them. At best, he would have turned around and walked away. You could call that integrity. But you could also call it naivety. It was why Gundalai would always remain just a dreamer.

  And, unwittingly, Gundalai would have an important part to play in any case. His lack of involvement enabled him to be the perfect witness. He would confirm what Odbayar wanted the authorities to believe.

  “You think too much,” Sam commented, glancing across at his silent passenger. “It can be unhealthy.”

  “I thought that was one of your gifts,” Odbayar said. “Thinking things through.”

  “I think when I need to. I make sure I don’t miss anything. But then I stop. If you think too much, you create problems where none exist.” He paused, his hands tight on the throbbing steering wheel. In a while, he would perhaps let the young man drive again. But he was conscious that Odbayar must be tired after the rigours of the previous night. It would not help them to have an accident out here. “And you need to be ready,” he went on. “You cannot plan everything. Some things will happen in ways that you do not expect. If you think too much, you will deaden your reactions.”

  Odbayar nodded, unsure whether Sam’s words represented ineffable wisdom or empty truisms. “You think something could go wrong?” he prompted.

  “Something will go wrong,” Sam said, calmly. “Something always goes wrong. We expect that and are ready for it.” He glanced across at Odbayar’s anxious face. “But it will be nothing important.” He smiled. “I have made sure of that. Now get some sleep. It’s been a long night. And we’re only at the start.”

  “I can take over the driving later if you want me to.”

  “Sleep first. We need to keep our minds clear.”

  Odbayar slumped back in his chair, feeling the rhythms of the road through his body. He wondered, as consciousness slipped from him, how long it had been since Sam had last slept.

  “So he was framed?” Solongo said. She was facing him across the kitchen table. Her eyes were boring into his, and he seriously believed, at least for a moment, that she could read what he was thinking.

  “No,” Tunjin said. “I don’t know.”

  “But this was murder you’re talking about? He was accused of murder?”

  “Yes,” Tunjin wondered quite how he’d gotten into this.

  “He was framed,” she said, simply. She’d missed her vocation in the legal profession, he thought. Five minutes in court with her, and he’d confess to anything.

  “You said it. He was set up.”

  “No,” Tunjin insisted. “I don’t know that. He was a murderer, we knew that.”

  “But you had no evidence,” she said. “Until the second murder.”

  “Yes, until we found the second body.”

  “And you thought that that was all just a bit too convenient. But you did nothing about it.”

  “What could I have done? The evidence was there. It was what we needed.”

  She watched him, unblinkingly. “Doripalam always said you were one of the ones with integrity. Whatever other faults you might have.”

  “I think he was generally more conscious of my faults.”

  “But I’m right, though, aren’t I?” she continued. “You’re one of the ones with some integrity?”

  “There are more of us than you might think,” Tunjin said. “But, yes, I hope so. I’ve done some stupid things in my time, but usually with the best of intentions.” He paused. “Which doesn’t make them any the less stupid.”

  “And this was stupid, was it?” she said. “Turning a blind eye. No—more than that. Using this supposed evidence to fit him up.”

  “If you want to put it that way. Things were different in those days.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that,” she said. She thought back to her father, and how little attention he would have paid to these niceties. “Okay. So I accept that, even if I don’t like it. But, if you think the evidence was faked, where did this body come from? You don’t just find a conveniently murdered corpse sitting on a street corner. Not even in those days.”

  There was a long silence as Tunjin stirred his already cold coffee. “No,” he said, finally. “But you could find them. If you knew where to look.”

  Solongo took even longer to reply. “And, if you knew where to look, I don’t suppose you had to look very hard.”

  “Not me,” he said. “I was just a junior officer. Did what I was told.”

  “Just obeying orders.”

  He shrugged. “If you like. But we knew what Wu Sam was. We knew he’d never be prosecuted. Not here, anyway. But it would give us an excuse to have him deported. Something the Chinese couldn’t create a diplomatic stink about.”

  “So you couldn’t just accuse him of being a spy?”

  “He was a spy as well. But that would have just led to endless disputes and reprisals. And we weren’t too bothered about him spying. We were bothered about him murdering young men.”

  “So you had him deported so he could carry on murdering young men in China?”

  “Maybe. But we didn’t think it was very likely that they’d allow him to. We didn’t imagine the Chinese authorities would simply turn a blind eye.”

  “And did they?”

  Tunjin shrugged. “We don’t know. No, that’s not right. I don’t know. I didn’t want to find out. I imagine the security services would have kept tabs on him.”

  “Would Nergui have known?”

  Tunjin looked up, surprised by her question. “Maybe. He was quite a bigwig even in those days. He’d been in the ministry. He’d set up the Serious Crimes Team. I imagine he could have found out if he’d wanted to.”

  She nodded. “So who was behind this? If you’re right about the framing, I mean. Was that Nergui?”

  He shook his
head. “I don’t think so. It’s not his style. Maybe he had his suspicions too, but he didn’t reveal anything.”

  “Which is very much his style. So who, then?”

  “I don’t know. The intelligence services, maybe.”

  “But why? Why would they go to those lengths over some junior spy, even if he really was a murderer? I don’t imagine the intelligence services shared your burning desire for justice.”

  “Probably not. But they don’t like things that are messy. Especially if they have international ramifications. Maybe they just wanted things tidied up, quickly and cleanly.”

  She nodded, her eyes thoughtful. “I’m missing the bit about the carpet.”

  “The body—the second body—had been beaten to death. It was wrapped in an old carpet and dumped in the cellar of Wu Sam’s apartment block. Along with one or two other pieces of neatly incriminating evidence.”

  “But the carpet?” she persisted.

  “Maybe some sort of joke.” He caught the expression on Solongo’s face. “Or a comment. Something else to point the finger in the right direction. Wu Sam was preparing a dissertation on the invasion of the Muslim empire.”

  “Hulagu,” she said.

  “Exactly,” he said. “Every school child knows that story.”

  “But he wasn’t a Muslim? The victim, I mean.”

  “I’ve no idea,” Tunjin said. “I don’t imagine so. He would have been a Communist, I imagine. Officially, at least.”

  “So you arrested this Wu Sam and had him deported.”

  “Pretty much. The evidence was there. I imagine we drew the Chinese authorities’ attention to the other unproven case. I don’t suppose they raised much objection. Probably just keen to—”

  “Brush it under the carpet,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  They sat in silence, both staring down at their half-full cups. Finally, Solongo rose and picked up the bottle of vodka from beside the kitchen sink. “I’m going to have some of this,” she said, holding out the bottle as if proffering a refill of coffee. “Do you want some?”

  Tunjin looked at her, suspecting an undertone of irony. “I think so,” he said.

  She took two glasses from one of the kitchen cupboards and carefully poured two measures. Small measures, he noted. But there would always be the opportunity to replenish them.

  She took a mouthful. “So,” she said, “you think what you did to this Wu Sam is somehow connected to the body at the museum?”

  “I don’t know. I mean—”

  “Every schoolchild knows that story.”

  “Yes, exactly. It might just be coincidence. Someone else trying to make some kind of point.”

  “But what kind of point?” she asked. “It occurred to me that there might be some kind of political resonance, but it doesn’t really make much sense.”

  “I don’t know. It makes no sense to me. And then I look at what happened in the square yesterday.”

  “So what did happen in the square yesterday?” she said. “I thought you were a hero. That you’d stopped a suspected suicide bomber.”

  “I don’t know what I am, but I don’t think I can claim to be a hero. I didn’t know what I was doing even if it had all turned out for the best. As it is—well, I don’t know how it’s turned out.”

  She took a swallow of her vodka, finishing the glass. Without a word, she poured another glass for herself and topped up Tunjin’s. “But what are you saying?” she said. “Are you saying that—whatever it was in the square is somehow connected with the body in the museum?”

  He shook his head and swallowed his own glass of vodka in a single mouthful. “I don’t know,” he said. “And I don’t know whether the supposed suicide bombing that I did or didn’t prevent is connected to whatever other bombing might have happened last night. I don’t know …” He stopped and helped himself to another glass of vodka. He waved the bottle vaguely in Solongo’s direction. She shook her head, holding up her largely untouched drink.

  “I don’t know anything, really,” he concluded. “I’m better at the instinctive stuff.”

  “Then we’d better stick together. I lost touch with my instincts years ago. But I’m okay at logic.”

  “And what does your logic tell you?”

  “That there’s something going on here. Something serious. And that it might well be connected to your Wu Sam.”

  He gazed at her, and then finished his vodka in another mouthful. “Funny,” he said. “That’s exactly what my instinct is telling me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sarangarel was trying to comfort Gundalai who, for some minutes, had seemed beyond any rational intervention. He curled in on himself, his body racked by endless rhythmic sobs. Nergui watched from his vantage point by the window, his expression suggesting he was observing some moderately interesting scientific demonstration.

  It was several minutes before Gundalai became calmer. Sarangarel sat beside him, gently feeding him sips of water. Finally, he looked up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just—well, Odbayar. We don’t know where he is—what’s happened to him.”

  “What do you think may have happened to him?” Nergui said, softly.

  Gundalai was staring at the floor. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’ve been worried.”

  “Worried about what?”

  “His campaigning. His anti-government campaigning. The things that were happening.”

  “You think he was making enemies?” Doripalam said.

  Gundalai shook his head. “I don’t think it was as simple as that. I mean, yes, he made enemies—he saw that as one of his purposes in life. But it was more that he was starting to have an impact. And people knew who he was. Who his father was, I mean.”

  “What are you saying?” Nergui’s tone was neutral.

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just saying that people were watching him.”

  “You think there were people who felt threatened by him? By his actions?” Doripalam said.

  Gundalai shook his head. “No, not really. I mean, he was small-fry, really, wasn’t he? There were plenty more influential figures out there.” He dropped his head into his hands, kneading his temples as though trying to stimulate his brain. “No,” he said through his fingers, “it was more that there were people who thought they could use him. People who thought he could give them some kind of leverage.”

  “What kind of people?” Nergui’s tone suggested nothing more than mild curiosity.

  “I’m not sure,” Gundalai said. “But some powerful people.” He stopped as though a thought had just occurred to him. “I didn’t believe that anyone would take him that seriously—not because of his political impact, at any rate. But there were people out there who thought he could help their cause.” He paused. “Maybe even some people on his own side.”

  “People opposed to the government, you mean?” Doripalam prompted.

  “Who knows?” Nergui said. “The biggest threat Odbayar poses is the risk of embarrassing his father. And there are plenty even within government who wouldn’t be sorry to see that happen.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Batzorig said. “I mean, Odbayar might have been taken by persons unknown for reasons unknown. But he might not have been. And if he has, we’ve no clue where he might have been taken.”

  “I think you’ve summed up the situation with characteristic succinctness,” Doripalam said. “We can’t do much more than we’re doing, interviewing anyone who might have been a witness from the bombing, anyone who can corroborate or add to what Gundalai saw.”

  “And that’s the best you can offer?” Gundalai said. “Endless witness interviews which just might add some tiny tidbit of information to what I’ve already told you?” He looked around the assembled group, as though suspecting that they might themselves be impostors.

  Doripalam shrugged. “It’s how it works. We don’t do miracles.”

  Nergui had turned and was staring out of the window.
His dark-skinned face as impassive as ever, his blue eyes fixed on the distant horizon. “And what about Wu Sam?” he said.

  “Wu Sam?” Doripalam looked up. “This supposed killer from twenty years ago? What about him? You really think there might be a connection?”

  Nergui turned to face the room, silhouetted against the morning’s brilliant sunshine. “Two identical killings,” he said. “Two bodies wrapped in carpets, replicating the story of Hulagu.”

  “Not necessarily identical, from what you said,” Doripalam pointed out. “We don’t know the victim at the museum was actually killed inside the carpet. We don’t know where the actual killing took place.”

  Nergui gazed blankly at him. “The scenario is exactly the same,” he said. “The victim was killed as you describe. And then the body was wrapped in the carpet and left, partly hidden, in the basement of Wu Sam’s apartment block.”

  Doripalam frowned. “But why would Wu Sam do that? Wrap the body in a carpet, I mean?”

  “Who knows? Perhaps just because he was insane. He was preparing his dissertation on the Mongol’s invasion of the Muslim lands. Perhaps the gesture meant something to him.”

  “Did it mean anything to you?” Doripalam persisted.

  Nergui looked for a moment as if he were about to respond to the question, then he shook his head. “It was enough for us. We did not need incontrovertible evidence. We simply needed something strong enough to justify our sending him back to his masters.”

  He sounded almost defensive. It was a tone that Doripalam had never heard from Nergui, even when he was describing the demands and challenges of the old regime. Nergui had always traversed the minefield of moral dilemma with the most delicate of steps, and he never seemed to lack confidence in his own ethical position. There was a new uncertainty here.

  “And you seriously think that the two cases might be connected?”

  “We have to consider the possibility. Especially considering …” his voice trailed off, and he sounded uncharacteristically tentative.